Better Than JiffY?!

A HUGE event occurred last night that I just had to share with everyone and their brother, sister, whoever. I made some homemade cornbread (from scratch) last night to help lift up some leftover chili from the freezer. I've tried homemade cornbreads in the past but they turned out kind of blah, not sweet enough, or just too dry. A couple of times Chris has said to just make Jiffy from now on. But, I'm trying to make more and more things from scratch and not depend on "prepackaged" stuff. I have been determined to find "that cornbread" that would push Jiffy off the pedestal in Chris' mind.

Folks, I have found it!! It is called Grandmother's Buttermilk Cornbread and I got it off of Allrecipes.com. Perhaps it is the buttermilk or even the whole stick of butter, but Chris said that it is far better than Jiffy. He said it is just right in sweetness and moist. He even said I can put this recipe in the "Permanent Recipe Collection" to be made from now on. I have reached a milestone in my "Make It From Scratch" journey.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1/4 pound butter (1 stick)
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch square pan.

2. Melt butter in large skillet (I just nuked in the microwave in a safe bowl). Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.

3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

ENJOY! I would love to hear from you if you have great success like I did!

WFMW--Rising Bread Dough

The one thing that I really don't like is waiting for my bread dough to rise. It seems to take FOREVER!! It is slow especially this time of year because we keep the house at 68 degrees. I don't have the time to wait around for my bread to rise...things to do...places to go.

But, guess what?! I discovered a cool way to make my dough to rise quicker and it is super easy. This is not one of those fancy "proofing boxes." Nope! Super Easy!

All I do is take a microwave safe measuring cup and I pour some water into it. I then put the measuring cup in the microwave and nuke the water for about 30-45 seconds. The water is slightly bubbly and the microwave is full of lovely warm humidity.

I then stick the dough in the microwave and close the door.



The dough probably rises twice as quickly as before.


Using my warm, humid microwave to rise my bread dough Works For Me!

I Made Challah!

I feel like I've reached a new level of breadmaking this past week. I took the plunge into challah. Yeah! Just a few months ago, I never would've imagined being able to make a breaded bread from scratch much less a basic white bread. I feel so confident now. It also helps that Chris LOVED the challah I made.

I found this recipe over at Tammy's Recipes and after I clicked on over from Biblical Womanhood. These two ladies have really become two of my favorite blogs. Such wonderful recipes and inspiration.

Anywhoo, on to the actual recipe and pictures.

This recipe yields 2 large loaves of a lovely braided white bread traditionally served on the Sabbath.

1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cups honey
1 tablespoon oil
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons dry yeast
5 cups flour, plus additional flour (mine was closer to 6-6.5 cups)

1. Combine ingredients in a large bowl in order listed. Add enough flour and knead to make a smooth dough. Knead approximately 10 minutes.

2. Oil a bowl and place dough inside. Flip the dough to be sure both sides are oiled. Let rise in a warm place until doubled (mine took just over 2 hours...kind of cold in our house). Punch down.

3. Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 14-15" long and an inch in diameter.

4. Lay 4 ropes side by side and pinch tops together. Braid tightly (the difficult part for me) starting on the left, taking the rope over two and under one. Pinch bottom ends and fold under.

Being Braided


Finished Braid

5. Place braids on greased baking sheets (I was able to use one with the braids side by side) and cover. Let rise in a warm place for 25-30 minutes.

Both Braids ready for the oven

6. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar (or whatever you want...Tammy says to use sesame or poppy seeds). Bake at 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until done. (Note: If loaves are on separte sheets, rotate halfway through baking time for even baking).

I had so much fun making this challah and I look forward to making it again. I took one loaf to a women's retreat I attended on Friday night and left the other one for Chris to eat while I was gone. He loved it and made sure I would make it again for him. That is no problem, Honey!

ENJOY!!

Expanding Into Wheat and The Bread Machine

I LOVE baking bread as anyone who reads this blog knows for sure. I love the mixing, the kneading, the rising, and the baking. I love it all. Not only is it yummy, but it is also quite therapeutic for me. There is just something about the process that makes me feel so good.

For the longest time, I've been making Amish White Bread because it was the first recipe I made from scratch and with my own hands (no bread machine). It is great for sandwiches, cinnamon toast, eggs-in-a-basket, etc. I've been making the dough for awhile and freezing it.

But, recently I've come to learn the time-saving beauty that is the bread machine. Don't get me wrong. I am still a "bread shape" purist. I don't like the shape the bread machine makes when it bakes your bread. I like the longer, more sandwich bread shape. A long time ago I learned from Crystal that you can use your bread machine to mix, knead, and rise your dough but then use a traditional bread pan to bake it in the oven. SCORE!! I still love, love kneading the bread but this time saving method is a winner in my household right now.

The first recipe I've made using the bread machine method is a Whole Wheat bread that I got from Crystal too. I am on a journey towards healthier eating and weight loss these days and I figured that I really need to open my mind to whole wheat bread especially since Caleb eats a sandwich of some sort just about every day. I tried the recipe yesterday and it really turned out great. Chris liked it and I think it will become our staple everyday loaf of bread for now.

Here is the recipe:

Homemade Wheat Bread

1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees F.)
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons oil
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole-wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons dry yeast

Put all ingredients in the bread machine in the order listed. Set on dough cycle. When dough cycle is finished, take dough out and shape into a loaf in a greased bread pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

ENJOY!!!

Graphic From AllPosters.com

Amish Friendship Bread Starter...The End

Well, Today was the last day of my first round of making Friendship Bread Starter. I added all the necessary ingredients and then I divvied it up into freezer bags. I ended up with far more than the recipe said I would. Hmmm. Those baggies have 1 cup of starter in each and I promptly put those into the freezer for future use.

I then used 1 cup to make my first round of Amish Friendship bread. At first I thought I would make this recipe, but decided against it. I wanted to make something Chris would really like too. I've since tasted the bread and it is just 'okay.' I don't know if I did something wrong or I just don't like the recipe.

I've got plenty of starter in the freezer so I'm hoping it was the recipe and not what I did. ;-) But, hey, being willing to try new things is part of what makes life fun isn't it?? I'll keep plugging along in my journey of bread-baking.

Does anyone have a tip or two on Amish Friendship Bread??

Friendship Bread Starter Watch...Part 2

After several days of just stirring once a day, Sunday was quite exciting because I got to add things to my Friendship Bread Starter. I added 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, and 1 cup sugar. (The flour and sugar were mixed together to help prevent clumping of the flour.)

Here we are about to start.

Here we are after all the mixing and stirring. You can already see all the bubbles. It must be working.

Now we embark on a journey of just stirring once a day until Friday. See you then!

World Bread Day!

How perfect is this?! I just wrote a post about my passion for baking bread and my new adventures into bread starters and look what I found. I was looking at a great blog called A Year in Bread and I saw a little button and I was intrigued. I did a little Google-ing and here it is.

More to come!

Adventures in Breadbaking--Friendship Bread Starter

Okay, I LOVE baking bread. It has become my new passion/hobby. I have not bought bread in months. My entire family is loving this new endeavor of mine. Caleb especially loves his PB&J's with homemade bread. Anyway, I am growing more adventurous and I want to stretch my wings. This dreaming is taking me into the world of Friendship Bread. I can't believe it. I NEVER thought I would step into the world of bread that requires a starter. I've already made my first sourdough starter and it is in the fridge waiting for the first batch. Watching that starter form was so much fun that now I'm going to make a Friendship Bread Starter. That one takes 10 days! Today was Day 1. Do you want to join me in this adventure? I'll try to take pictures as we go. Here we are for Day 1.

Here is my entire setup. (Please pardon the less than tidy kitchen table.)

You can even see a little bit of my checklist for the ten day process.
I can't trust myself to remember when to do each step.

And this is what the starter looks like on Day 1 after about 3 hours of fermenting.

9 more days to go!!
I can smell that yummy Friendship Bread already!

Please note that this is the first time I'm doing this with all the successes and probably, failures.

Freezing Bread Dough

In my journey of bread baking I am always looking for ways to make my baking more efficient. As much as I LOVE baking homemade bread, I don't love how much time it takes. I used to bake two loaves of bread once a week and that required a good 3 hours of mixing, kneading, rising, kneading again, shaping, rising, and baking. Whoo!!

Then, I had the idea of designating one day for a mega-bread-baking day. I baked as much bread as time would allow and I froze it. That worked well but I did miss having freshly baked bread and I also used up an entire day. Don't get me wrong! I LOVED spending an entire day baking. It was very relaxing and therapeutic. I just need to get other things done around here too.

I have discovered something great!! Freezing Bread Dough. I've heard of people doing this and I know you can buy dough at the store but I've never done it myself. I tried it last week and it turned out great!

Here is what I did:

1. I pulled out my favorite bread recipe: Amish White Bread
2. I made the dough as always
3. I kneaded the bread until it was ready for the first rising (per the recipe)
4. However, instead I went ahead and shaped the dough into two loaves
5. I placed the loaves into my two well-greased bread pans
6. Covered the pans and dough with plastic wrap
7. Placed the covered pans into the freezer.
8. I waited until the dough was stiff and wrapped each loaf in plastic wrap.
9. I placed the two loaves into a gallon sized freezer bag and put immediately back into the freezer.
10. The dough is good for 3 months.

Today I made one loaf of the yummy bread. Here's how that went.

1. Around 7 am I pulled one frozen solid loaf of bread dough and placed it into the bread pan it fit into (I have one slightly bigger than the other). The bread pan is well greased.
2. I covered the pan and dough with plastic wrap that I sprayed with pan spray...spray side down.
3. I left the dough to thaw and rise at the same time.
4. Once the dough had risen thoroughly I placed the pan into the oven and baked according to the recipe. (Minus the plastic wrap, of course).

I really like this method because I can make one loaf at a time and it is fresh each time. Frozen dough also takes up less space in the freezer. My new goal is to maintain frozen dough in the freezer so that it is already ready for me to pull it out and bake away. Yum!! Can you smell it?

Freezing Bread Dough is what Works For Me!!